Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday April 05, 2013 @05:15PM
from the depends-on-the-kernel-maintainers dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "For quite some time, there's been a theory drifting around that government can be made more open and efficient via the same crowdsourcing and social-networking tools that created such successes out of Facebook, Twitter and Kickstarter. In that spirit, numerous pundits and analysts have advocated the development of 'e-government' or 'government 2.0.' But what if the idea isn't as great as it seems? That's the angle embraced by Evgeny Morozov in a recent essay for The Baffler. Structured as a lengthy takedown of open-source advocate and O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly, the piece veers off to fire a few torpedoes at the idea of making government more responsive and transparent through technology (the latter being something O'Reilly readily advocates). 'One of the main reasons why governments choose not to offload certain services to the private sector is not because they think they can do a better job at innovation or efficiency,' Morozov writes, 'but because other considerations — like fairness and equity of access — come into play.' If O'Reilly himself argues that a government should be 'stripped down to its core' into a form more transparent and collaboration-friendly, Morozov counters with the idea that the 'participation' envisioned by most government 2.0 scenarios is limited, little better in practice than the comments section at the bottom of a corporate blog posting."

I would like to clarify briefly what the original article in the Baffler was talking about. I think the slashdot article and the summary on this thread which was copied directly from it miss a few important points. The article is not about how openness, transparency and mass participation in the government are in any way undesirable or impossible, nor is it about how that cannot or should not be achieved through technology. The article does not suggest that making government more open and connected is a bad

Ideas of open government based on social fairness and strong government are not discussed or even mentioned in the article.

I gather this is mostly a reaction piece to O'Reilly. So the author can be excused. But I must admit to being puzzled by how this was casually dropped in your post without comment or justification. First, I don't believe there is such thing as social fairness. Some people are naturally going to do better and have more advantages than others. They'll be more socially connected, more intelligent or knowledge, better genes, or just luckier. Reality is inherently unfair and I don't see society improving by tryi

It seems we fundamentally disagree on certain points. I understand that this is unlikely to change but here is my response nevertheless.

I used the idea of government based on social fairness and strong government merely as it was the opposite of what was discussed. It was meant as an example of something that is not mentioned or discussed in the article, there are other examples in between and in other ideological directions. I was disputing the summary here that suggests the article was expressing an op

Social fairness is a principle that many governments (including the USA) are based on.

Then what is it and where does it show up in the Constitution? The US wasn't based on income equity or that would have been specified in the Constitution. It's not based on GDP, unemployment, or national debt or that would have been specified in the Constitution. It's not based on mental illness, criminality, depression, violence, job productivity, life expectancy, child mortality, obesity, addiction, and literacy, or that would have been specified in the Constitution.

Saying you don't believe in social fairness is like saying you don't believe in freedom.

When has the government ever done anything "fairly" or to ensure "ease of access"?

Politicians, after all, are the easiest people in the world to bribe, it is the only job in America where bribes are legal. The result is something that pervades every aspect of government at all levels called PAY TO PLAY.

This ensures that 1) The biggest briber gets the best deal 2) Everyone else gets screwed.

Worse, governments spout all kinds of emotional propaganda to cover up the actual reality of how the system w

Politicians, after all, are the easiest people in the world to bribe, it is the only job in America where bribes are legal.

People or businesses with interests before the government can contribute to the campaigns of legislators, the president, and a variety of political groups and PACs. Legally. So claim is TRUE.

The result is something that pervades every aspect of government at all levels called PAY TO PLAY.

Given the endless dribble of pro-IP law and bills coming out of Congress and the White House these days, I'd say there's some evidence for this position. MAYBE which might be upgraded to TRUE, if I bothered to google for it.

1) The biggest briber gets the best deal

That's going to take work to verify. Not feeling it. MAYBE.

2) Everyone else gets screwed.

Would be a consequence of point 1). MAYBE.

Worse, governments spout all kinds of emotional propaganda to cover up the actual reality of how the system works, directing people's anger away from the real criminals onto other groups in society.

well, my take is that we need them more 'open and fair' but what we are going to get in the short term is a more technological government that is easier to crack and find hole for the hackers to get into and steal the meat of what they are doing wrong. Then the protesters on the out side and whistle blowers can post that shit all around to everyone can see it if you got a browser and an internet connection. Now this has already happened, i am waiting to see some change come from this i am very hopeful they

Thus hedge-fund manager "carried interest" is just as much an entitlement as food stamps.

Nonsense. Carried interest [wikipedia.org] is part of the contract between the hedge-fund manager and their customers and hence, not an entitlement. It's also worth noting that hedge fund entitlements don't make up more than 50% of the whole federal budget, while the primary individual entitlements, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and unemployment insurance do.

You're about half right. Carried interest itself isn't an entitlement, it's compensation agreed upon. The special tax treatment that doesn't consider carried interest to be compensation, however, IS an entitlement, available solely to those rich and/or connected enough.

Having read that page a while ago, what bothers me even more than the special treatment of carried interest is the rationale behind it. Apparently, those who manage hedge funds are too stupid to keep track of their personal shares of the fund

You realise of course that since everyone (give or take) is simultaneously parent and child, your criticism makes no sense?

You should be a slave to future you: that way, you will exercise and invest carefully and lead a productive life. Now you wants an extra beer with that third doughnut.

And then there is the idea that this is a Ponzi scheme: if each level of the pyramid is the same size as the preceding, you have a perfectly good and stable system, not a nefarious scheme. And as the population tends to g

There's no such thing as a road built by the government, or a private toll road built by a private corporation.

Here's how roads get built:

The government has to allocates funds to build a road. This is decided through a process of exchanging favors. It goes like this: First, someone in your district gives you a bribe, er contribution, er promise to deliver votes in return for a juicy, high margin road building contract. In the case of

"The road is built, at the highest possible cost to you, the taxpayer, at the lowest quality. It isn't a road at all."

Except here in northern virginia, the main privately-created road, the Dulles Toll Road, had fewer lanes -- and they are narrower -- and costs $2.50 each direction. For me to take it to my job would double my total commuting costs (I've done the math).

So the quality of the road is lower than the government-funded roads I take -- 495, 66 -- and cost to me is higher. And the

I'm not a cynic, Clint, I'm a realist who has been involved in many, many business deals at the ripe old age of 57. I've worked with folks inside and outside the beltway, in public and private industry.

Every construction deal is a different story, I don't live in Virginia so I can't speak to how that particular arrangement came about, but my experience tells me that my description of events (which was meant to be enlightening, n

You just dis-proved your own point. You, a person working in the government, believes that your constituents are crazy when they might not be. Let's be honest, there are a bunch of wackos out there and many bunk conspiracy theories.

Going from "open government" to "outsourcing" is a non sequitur meant to set up a straw man. It is outsourcing that results in private firms treating government data as proprietary, and it is this kind of outsourcing that open government initiatives seek to avoid.

It's a long piece. Tl;dr: Think tank wonk mistakes Tim O'Reilly for a technolibertarian and turgidly tilts at windmills of his own invention.

unfortunately for your accusations, O'Reilly IS a technolibertarian, overtly supports outsourcing of critical government functions, is mostly concerned with getting government "out of the way" to allow corporate "innovation," and the responsibility part of government is of little interest to him, as Morozov's piece suggests.
Read:
O'Reilly's "government as platform": http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9780596804350/defining_government_2_0_lessons_learned_.html [oreilly.com]
Harvard Law Professor Jennifer Shkabatur's "Tran

I find that there is a link between transparency and outsourcing. This is because your typical government is much, much less opaque than your average corporation. So you can see all the shit that goes on. The waste, the graft, the inneficiencies.

Now these are the same in corporations. Frequently way, way worse. But you can't see them. And the sad fact is that people don't really want efficiency, and quality and all those things. They want the image thereof. Thus, as a politician, the faster method to get to

It is rare to see such an officious, self-important and clueless article. Usually the clueless people try to retain the appearance of objectivity, and the officious and self-important try not to sound clueless.

I'm not even sure what this guy thinks caused the internet to come in to being, or how it was possible. From his stance it seems that he thinks if Richard Stallman had been elected Dirty Dictator in Chief that we would all be driving hover cars to our communal

If it ever happens, let me know. The only truly "open government" I've ever seen has been a township board. Even there, major decisions were as likely as to have been made out at dinner on someone's farm as in an open debate chamber. On every other level, governments have been headed down the path of beefing up specialist/executive powers at the expense of public access or power.

It seems to me the original democracy as practiced by the ancient Greeks was essentially crowdsourcing. All the man would gather in the square and all could speak and put forward their ideas which would be voted up or down by the crowd. This is simply adding the "over the internet" to a very old idea.

and examine the concern over the frenzy of the mob and the need to temper it as a reason for not having immediate votes by every citizen directly.

I just finished 6 hours worth of recorded lectures on the Federalists versus the anti-Federalists and the debates leading up to the writing of the constitution. Interesting how the concerns of both sides are still in play centuries later in most of the red/blue disagreements.

Interesting how the concerns of both sides are still in play centuries later

Not really. There is no Human 2.0. Our ancestors weren't incompetent at life. The principles they codified into our constitution are largely valid today, and they left room to correct the parts that weren't because they understood they were fallible.

Here's my solution: Require all politicians, or those running for office for two years before, to wear recorders that record all audio and vidoeo in their vacinity -- video where they are looking, and audio. All of it, 100% around the clock.

Fuck these secret backroom deals once and for all. You wanna "serve the people"? Get on your god damned knees.

I used to subscribe to the Baffler, but issues came out less and less often, then stopped completely. Now they're back. They're one of the few publications still publishing serious essays.

That said, this essay is more about Stallman vs. O'Reilly. That's a modestly interesting subject, but has little to do with government.
But what if government were "more connected"? What would it look like?

Banks used to be very disconnected internally. You could have a checking account, a savings account, a credit car

Isn't this whole article a bit of a strawman? When discussion open government people are - in my experience at least - more commonly referring to improved representation, accountability, and a role in policy making. This article (unless I've misunderstood) is instead arguing against open-as-in-free-enterprise. Which yes, I think is a pretty daft approach to governance.

What I would like to see (personal soapbox; feel free to skip) is an approach to voting that allows for delegation of particular 'voting powe

I actually read TFA (from the Baffler) earlier this week, and (shockingly) I think a lot of the other/. commenters did not. Is "open" government good? Everybody likes "open!" But the point is that the definition of "open" is, well, open to interpretation, and may not be the interpretation you like. Saying "yes" or "no" without qualification means you don't understand the point of the debate: the definition of "open."

In the context of the article, the author makes the case that "open" to O'Reilly means "the government opens its functionality for exploitation by industry," whether that means government databases, or the ability to provide services. But this serves the industry, not the people. Basically likening the government to say, FaceBook having an "open" API to give companies the "freedom" to interoperate with it. But that's openness and freedom for developers (industry) and not for users (citizens). And for the goal of efficiency, not morality. You, citizen, still don't get to know what's going on behind closed doors, or have more than a token influence on policy.

It's the free/libre debate applied to government. Is the purpose of "open government" to improve efficiency by having private companies "plug-in" to the government system to provide services, or to transfer power to the citizen to enable self-governance? The article argues it's the former.

It quite simply boils down to whomever controls the information has the power. In my area there is a fight to get the public bus systems GPS logs. They can look over the information and play with the numbers until they are able to say things like our buses are on-time 98% of the time. But what is their definition of on time. If an independent investigator has access they might find that the buses are on time 2% of the time if you make the parameters more reasonable. If the real information in this situation

... by those of us who pay the government to function in our benefit, as the founders intended, by each government funder telling government on what they are going to spend the funding each provided, on.

This means there is no more a budgeting problem as we funders decide where the funding is going to be used. No different than the owner and paycheck signer of a company tells its employees what to do.

Transparency comes from the government seeking funding for specific issues they want funding for. If the fund